This invention relates to dispensers, vending machines and methods, and particularly to dispensers, vending machines and methods for dispensing tickets from strips in which the tickets are delineated from one another by lines of weakness, such as perforation lines. Preferably, the dispensers are used to dispense “scratch-off” or “instant-winner” lottery tickets.
Various types of machines have been provided for dispensing and vending “instant-winner” or “scratch-off” type lottery tickets. Such tickets are characterized by being printed in long strips in which each ticket is delineated from the others by perforation lines.
The tickets often are stored in fan-fold form in a vending machine, and are issued in response to the insertion of money by the customer. The tickets are characterized by being printed on relatively heavy stock which is relatively stiff, but still flexible.
In some of the vending machines, the customer tears the tickets off of the strip by pulling on the ticket as it extends from the machine. In other such machines, the machine bursts each ticket apart from the rest and dispenses it separately.
In the type of dispenser in which tickets are burst free from the strip, there are several significant problems.
One of the main problems is that the separating mechanism currently used is relatively large, complex, and expensive to build and maintain.
Another problem with such prior dispensers is that the most common of such dispensers burst each and every ticket free from the strip. This tends to thwart the desires of some customers who would prefer to receive a string of connected tickets.
A further problem is with the loading of tickets into a multi-bin lottery ticket dispensing machine. The service representative usually is required to read certain information off of the tickets in a batch to be loaded into one bin, and load the information into the microprocessor controller of the vending machine by use of a keypad or the like. This is time-consuming, laborious, and error-prone.
Another problem with such systems is that winning tickets usually require verification. Ticket verification usually is performed when the customer carries a winning ticket to a clerk in a store, who then inserts it into a machine which reads the code on the back of the ticket and checks with a central computer to ascertain that the ticket so identified is, indeed, a winner, and to verify the winning amount. When this verification is complete, the holder can be paid the winnings.
Although this procedure minimizes certain kinds of errors and fraud, it does not detect a ticket which has come into the possession of the holder by means other than its actual dispensation from a vending machine.
Another problem with instant-winner gaming tickets is that a relatively large variety of different games are developed in order to keep the ticket buyers' interest. This creates additional costs for the lottery ticket issuing organization, requires more dispensing bins per vending machine, and/or more vending machines to dispense the multitude of games.
It is another problem with ticket vending systems that they do not provide accounting for all of the tickets dispensed by the vending machines in the system.